Category: V

robe volante

18th century, R, term definition, V

A dress originating in 18th-century France which was pleated at the shoulder and hung loose down, worn over hoops.

vest/waistcoat

17th century, 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, term definition, V, W

A close-fitting inner garment, usually worn between jacket and shirt.

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Emile Pingat’s lavish visiting dresses were the

Emile Pingat’s lavish visiting dresses were the height of fashion for decades; this one is eye-catching for its color-blocking, careful details, and complicated finishings. This 1872 visiting dress features a full bustle silhouette with pleated and gathered ruffles running along the bodice’s opening and the hem of the underskirt. As with many fashionable ensembles of the time, designer Emile Pingat tried to combine as many elements of fabric manipulation as he could into one garment. Besides the gathering and pleating that covers much of the underskirt, the overskirt was bedecked with dangling fly fringe, pleated trim, and bows of contrasting fabrics. The maroon of the overskirt combined with the light olive underskirt creates a strong color contrast, which was also considered fashionable. Almost every edge in this ensemble is finished with silk bias strips in contrasting colors. Fashions of the early 1870s were often reminiscent of clothing a century before because of the US centennial in 1776; the sides of this overskirt may have been tied up in a nod to a skirt style of the 1770s. It was a fashion that tied the skirt up at two points in the back, often called a ‘polonaise’ but more correctly described as ‘retroussée’ (pulled up/rolled up). This retro element is visible at the sides of Pingat’s 1872 gown, in keeping with the fashion of these years. The sheer variety of extensive trimmings on this gown were the height of fashion; dresses of this early bustle era were often confections of shaped trims, fringe, lace, and anything else the designer could think of. Skirts often employed horizontal trimming and flounces, often in contrasting fabrics or textures. Pingat did not stop at pleats, gathers, and bows, but also ordered contrasting bias, linings, embroidered buttons, and decorative metal parts. Fine details and finishings were important to dresses in this period; fine fabric alone was no longer enough, and dresses made all in one fabric had to work even harder to stay fashionable. Read more at the link in the bio!
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Following the significant changes of the previous

Following the significant changes of the previous decade, the 1450s was a period of relative stability in fashion. The new proportions and trends of the 1440s developed further and were refined. Women’s headdresses grew higher, until they became the tall pointed cones with hanging veils that have captured the imagination ever since. The foundation of women’s dress in the 1450s continued to be the chemise, the undergarment of undyed linen that was worn by all women, whether they were rich or poor. The chemise was a washable underlayer that protected the next layer of clothing, the dress. Dresses could be made of linen or wool and worn in layers according to the season. Dresses seen in Piero della Francesca’s frescoes ‘The Legend of the True Cross,’ in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo, display the characteristics of the most advanced fashions of the decade in Italy. The fresco cycle, begun in 1452, tells a legendary medieval story of the cross upon which Christ was crucified. To bring such stories to life, artists commonly represented biblical or mythological figures dressed in contemporary fifteenth-century clothing. In that region of Italy, the women’s dress on the fresco would’ve been called a ‘gamurra’ and it was made of silk or a fine wool, and lined in linen to protect the fabric and give the garment body. Such garments were constructed with a seam at a high waistline, where the bodice of the dress is joined to the skirt. Skirts were then pleated with narrow ‘pipe pleats’ with the fullness released to trail on the ground. Although garments in depictions of this time are unmistakably modern, they recall the draped costume of antiquity, as intended. The hairstyle shared by several young women, in which the hair is wrapped with strips of linen and coiled around the head, is another allusion to antiquity. A popular headdress for the period was the ‘bourrelet,’ referred to as the ‘ghirlanda’ in Italy, which was a padded roll covered with fabric and additional detail such as feathers, gems, or embroidery. Read more at the link in the bio!
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We’re excited to announce that a book—The Art

We’re excited to announce that a book—The Art of Parisian Chic: Modern Women and Modern Artist in Impressionist Paris—by the Fashion History Timeline’s creator and editor @addressingart will be published in 2025. Follow @artofparisianchic for more!

André Derain painted his old friend Lucien Gilber

André Derain painted his old friend Lucien Gilbert in the wild, eccentric colors and style of Fauvism. The colors may be unconventional but the sitter is not. Derain presents Gilbert, a future architect, as a proper young professional: stylish but conservative. Not much is known about Gilbert but he had been friends with Derain since childhood and he was Derain’s very first collector, over the course of his life acquiring fourteen of Derain’s paintings. The clothing is in the English style but worn by a Frenchman. Although England was the center for menswear and cemented its hegemony with the creation of the Savile Row tradition, local tailors in France and America interpreted styles as was appropriate to their clientele. As there is no information about Gilbert visiting London in the early 1900s and his clothing appears to be custom-tailored, perhaps he ordered his clothes from a French tailor who followed English styles and presented fashion plates to clients. Derain also inconveniently truncates our view of Gilbert, cutting off the top of his hat and slicing off his lower torso. We can, at best, only make educated guesses about the full silhouette. In 1905, King Edward VII had been on the throne for four years (we now call his reign in England the ‘Edwardian’ era). A style-setter with the largest wardrobe in the world, he was a model for men who aspired to be well-dressed. In France and England, royalty and the aristocracy still exerted considerable influence on styles. The ideal of the well-dressed man in this decade was to look genteel, prosperous and athletic. It is hard to say with certainty the kind of coat that Gilbert is wearing; it is unclear how faithful Derain was in depicting the garment and Gilbert’s sitting position obscures the actual cut. It appears to be fit closely to the waist, has a notched collar, and the front is double-breasted with two parallel buttons. The style could possibly be a walking coat or a kind of cut-away frock or sack coat. Read more at the link in the bio!
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In 1856, women’s dresses were made mostly in sil

In 1856, women’s dresses were made mostly in silk, cotton, and velvet, and their silhouettes consisted of bodices fitted to the waist and full bell skirts that were accessorized with flounces, stripes, trims, and flowers. Velvet was all the rage during the year, and featured on bell skirts, or as details on other materials like silk and taffeta. As a detail, velvet was cut in a floral or geometric shape, or in broad stripes. Often, a dress’s velvet stripes were edged with a narrow black lace, adding a luxurious and unique detail to evening wear. Though used in different varieties and areas of dress, vertical stripes were seen in fashion plates throughout the entire year. Often used as the entire gown’s fabric, stripes added an interesting aspect to women’s fashion. Stripes were created in different colors and widths, but remained in prevalence all the same for women of different ages and classes. Laces were also particularly popular with the ‘bertha,’ a deep collar made of lace and attached to the top of a low neckline dress, being seen on various fashion plates throughout the year. Corsages were popular as well as flowers on printed fabrics, sometimes combined with a striped fabric, or paired with a neckline corsage itself. Read more at the link in the bio!
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The strongly Surrealist Skeleton Dress was designe

The strongly Surrealist Skeleton Dress was designed by Elsa Schiaparelli in collaboration with Salvador Dalí for her 1938 collection Le Cirque. The floor-length, black body-hugging evening gown is composed of silk crêpe with a fine matte sheen. The gown covers the wearer from her fingertips to her ankles, utilizing a high neckline, and plastic zippers on the shoulder seams and right side. The full-coverage aspect of the garment, along with its seemingly constricting nature, plays into the surrealism of the garment, acting as a “second skin” on the wearer. The Skeleton Dress features quilting resembling large bones, particularly the rib cage, vertebrae, hip, and leg bones. The skeletal structure is made using an exaggerated trapunto quilting technique involving the use of cotton wadding to give the design a three-dimensional effect. As she herself was a fashion visionary in so many ways, it only made sense that she worked with art world visionaries like Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau. Schiaparelli utilized surrealist influences throughout her work as a couturier. The Le Cirque collection (1938), inspired by the circus, featured many whimsical and light-hearted circus-themed elements which made the gothic qualities of the Skeleton Dress look odd in comparison. Dalí provided the inspiration that led to the collaboration on the Skeleton Dress by giving Schiaparelli a drawing of a woman in a sheer, body-hugging dress, but with her rib cage and hip bones exposed. The garment is emblematic of the Schiaparelli Couture House because it so flawlessly fits within her aesthetic; avant-garde, yet classic in terms of construction and silhouette. The Skeleton Dress evokes Schiaparelli’s specialty, sportswear, due to the fabric it was made out of and the level of mobility the dress allows for. Schiaparelli designed with eccentricity and ingenuity at the forefront, but with an emphasis on practicality and comfort. Read more at the link in the bio!
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Titian’s portrait from the beginning of the 16th

Titian’s portrait from the beginning of the 16th century captures a young Venetian looking his fashionable best, lavishly dressed for his decade. Also known as ‘A Man With a Blue Sleeve,’ Titans work is often-praised, and yet nobody is sure exactly who the sitter is. Only in recent years have art historians settled on the figure being Gerolamo Barbarigo, a member of an aristocratic Venetian family. This and other portraits of men by Titian allow us to see not only the emerging Renaissance style of portrait painting, but more importantly the beginning of 16th-century men’s fashion. Barbarigo wears a cloak, dyed expensive black and of some fine and lustrous material, possible silk or wool. However, upon closer look, you may notice a fluffy shape in the background of the portrait – making this cloak likely edged or lined with fur. He wears it loosely draped over one shoulder, seemingly devoid of hardware or fasteners, which would fit this decade’s style. Underneath, Barbarigo wears a blue doublet, possibly with slashes. Titian’s gentle style combined with the low lighting of the painting makes it difficult to distinguish whether this is more typical slashing or if it is possibly quilting instead. The sleeves appear to be constructed in a paned style, but with the gaps closed up in long seams. In general, there is usually a contrasting color which appears underneath slashing and open paning, but here all we see is the creamy blue of the outside of Barbarigo’s doublet. Another key element to note is the sleeve size. Sleeves of this period were full and puffed at the top, more closely fitted from the elbow to the wrist. The cut of the sitters garment features a lower neckline, slightly more square than round. Underneath, Barbarigo wears the typical ‘camicia,’ or shirt, made of linen. Upon close inspection, Barbarigo’s camicia edge contains both small ruffles from the fine stroked gathering and some gold embroidery. Read more at the link in the bio!
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In the 1630s, womenswear featured broad shoulders

In the 1630s, womenswear featured broad shoulders and high waists, which fashion-forward women had already begun to adopt in the previous decade. France continued to set the styles worn by the elite in France, England and the Netherlands. Soft, shimmering satins, often in light colors, were favored. Lace collars could either stand off the shoulders with the use of wire supports or lie flat. Matching lace cuffs were worn and lace frequently edged the often-low square necklines. Sleeves were very full, typically paned leg-of-mutton sleeves that were cinched in the middle with a ribbon or rosette—the combination became known as virago sleeves. Bodices of the 1630s did not wrap fully around the body and the gap at the center front had to be filled by a stomacher. As stomachers were completely independent of the bodice—simply pinned into place each day—they are not often preserved together with the bodices they were typically worn with. One could wear a stomacher with multiple different bodices, after all. Many Dutch women adopted the French style of dress, but retained their much beloved ruffs, long after women in other countries had discarded them. Portraits by Rembrant depict women in fashionable virago sleeves and high waists of the period, but paired with enormous cartwheel ruffs—demonstrating that not all fashions were adopted uniformly across cultures. And, indeed, not all people of a time dressed in the latest fashions. Some chose, then as now, to dress in older styles whether due to personal aesthetic preferences, financial limitations, or group membership. Read more at the link in the bio!
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Pompeo Batoni became the premiere portraitist for

Pompeo Batoni became the premiere portraitist for 18th-century English, Irish and Scottish gentlemen during their visit to Rome on the Grand Tour, as seen in this portrait of an unknown young man. While working in Rome in the 1740s painting altarpieces, Batoni first encountered Grant Tourists. Between 1750-1760, he produced 60 British portraits and created a reputation as one of the best for the likeness of his portraits. His style was vivid and precise. It usually had the sitter engaged in a leisurely pose with an open Classical setting, surrounded by antiquities; giving the sitter a sophisticated and refined quality. This 1765 portrait from Batoni depicts a sitter who is still unknown however, based on the elaborately embroidered suit, many assume that he was most likely a French aristocrat on the Grand Tour. The sitter is wearing a typical French three-piece court suit as decreed by King Louis XIV. He wears a red silk velvet long coat with wide cuffs and gold embroidery on the edges in the front and on the sleeves with matching gold buttons for closure. Underneath that he wears a white silk waistcoat with matching gold embroidery and buttons for closure. He pairs it with fitted red silk velvet breeches with a belted gold ribbon trim and matching gold buttons vertical from the closure. Underneath that, he wears white stockings and black leather shoes with a decorative gold buckle strap. He also is seen wearing a sword on his hip, a lace jabot and black cravat around his neck and an undershirt with lace sleeves. The costume was most likely made by a male tailor and acquired in a shop where the sitter was measured to create a personalized fit. Most men of the eighteenth century wore powdered wigs like our sitter. It was a mark of social status and became essential for full dress occasions. Despite the sitter wearing what was considered formal attire, the three-piece court suit was very often worn within leisure settings such as the Grand Tour and especially when sitting for a portrait. Read more at the link in the bio!
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